Fields and Sharpless Win Outright; District 3 School Board Seat Goes to a November Runoff

Two of the three contested Polk County School Board races were settled in Tuesday's Aug. 18 primary, and one was not. Incumbent Kay Fields held District 5 with 57% of the vote and board chair Justin Sharpless took District 6 with 67.5%, while the District 3 seat drew no majority winner, sending appointed incumbent Kate Wallace and challenger Victor Sims to a runoff on the Nov. 3 general election ballot. Because school board races here are nonpartisan and countywide, every registered voter in Lakeland cast a ballot in all three, and every Lakeland voter will get another say in District 3 in November.

How the three races finished

Seat	Result
District 3	Wallace 45.1%, Sims 35.8%, Corona 19.1% — runoff Nov. 3
District 5	Fields 57%, Neelam 43% — decided
District 6	Sharpless 67.5% over Hampton — decided

Sarah Corona, who finished third in District 3 with 19.1%, is out of the race. She said afterward that she does not plan to run again, and that she was proud of a first campaign that brought out voters who had never cast a primary ballot before.

A fourth seat never made it to a contest. District 7's Lisa Miller was reelected without opposition before Election Day.

Fields extends the longest tenure on the board

Fields, first elected in 2002, is now the longest-serving member of the Polk County School Board. She is president and CEO of Girls Inc. of Lakeland. Her challenger, technology entrepreneur and Florida Polytechnic University trustee Sam Neelam, had the money advantage: roughly $45,000 in contributions, $40,000 of it his own, against about $37,000 for Fields. Local reporting notes 93% of Fields' donations came from inside Polk County, the highest share of any candidate in the field.

The 2023 state law capping school board members at eight years does not apply retroactively, which is why Fields was eligible to run again. She has said this term will be her last, and that she wants to focus it on teacher pay and on incentives to recruit and keep district employees.

Sharpless, an agriculture professor at Warner University and a Lake Wales resident, beat 19-year-old Polk State College student Kasen Hampton by better than two to one. He reported more than $55,000 raised. Hampton reported about $2,400. Sharpless has pointed to the district's move from a C grade to a B and set an A grade by 2030 as his goal for the next four years.

District 3 keeps going for another 11 weeks

Wallace was appointed to the seat on Nov. 7, 2025, by Gov. Ron DeSantis, filling the vacancy left by the death of board member Rick Nolte. A Bartow native and director of state government affairs for Charter Communications, she has run as the conservative in the race, emphasizing school choice and parent options.

Money is the clearest dividing line heading into the runoff. Wallace reported nearly $73,000 in contributions through Aug. 13, close to double either opponent, with a significant share from real estate, development and construction donors and 43% of her contributions coming from outside Polk County. Sims reported more than $27,000, built on the largest number of individual donations in the race and an average gift of $72. His backers include the Polk Education Association's political committee and a former board member.

Sims, who has been campaigning for roughly 500 days, told supporters on election night to expect outside money to pour into the November contest and asked them to keep giving.

Across all seven candidates, the primary drew $264,315 in campaign fundraising.

Turnout, and what comes next

Countywide participation was 20.83%, according to the Supervisor of Elections Office. That is better than the 17.21% who voted in the 2024 primary, and it still means roughly four in five registered voters sat this one out.

The figures above are unofficial until canvassed. Wallace and Sims will appear on the Nov. 3 ballot alongside the general election races, so the District 3 runoff will be decided by a much larger electorate than the one that produced Tuesday's result. Newly elected members are sworn in in November, and Fields, Sharpless and Miller begin four-year terms then. Results are posted at the Polk County Supervisor of Elections site.

For more on the schools your kids attend and the people who run them, visit Lakeland Community Website and browse our latest education stories and government and politics coverage. Voting in the District 3 runoff, or skipping it? Join the conversation in our Community Forum.

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